Hitched

Well, its finally over. The anchor has been dropped and I am off the market. Kelly and I tied the knot on the 15th. If you haven't heard our story I'll give a quick recap. Kelly and I grew up down the street from each other. Our families are friends and I have been friends with her father ever since he would let me have a beer with him when I was 17. Kelly is a little over four years younger than I am so we never thought of dating for obvious reasons growing up. Kelly went to college at Gustavus in St. Peter and I went to MN State down the road in Mankato. Other than me giving her a lift to her dorms once we still never considered dating.

As time went by I got heavily involved in triathlons and she went on to Medical School. Between working full time, training and having all married friends I was out of options in the dating scene. Kelly was under the same gun with all her studying and time commitments with school. Somehow we both got on Eharmony about the same time and were matched up on her second day and my second week. Kelly didn't show picture on her profile so I had no idea it was the Kelly from down the street but I did like her profile so I asked to see a picture. When I "nudged" her for a picture Kelly nearly fell of her chair. At first she thought giving me a chance would be weird but thankfully her stepmother told her that she was a fool if she didn't give me a chance because I was such a nice guy. Then one evening I got a call from her father Pete. We made some small talk and then he passed the phone to Kelly. I knew something was up and sure enough Kelly informed me that we had been matched up on Eharmony. We went through the match process and started dating. I new after just two dates that this was someone that I could definitely see being my wife. A year later we were engaged and two years later we are now married.

The week of the wedding started out cold with endless bouts of rain but the weather turned perfect just in time for the big day. Kelly did a fantastic job with planning and everything went off without a hitch. So much so that I don't even have any good stories about close calls.

The wedding day actually started as any usual Saturday as I had to get some mileage in before the honeymoon and with the Liberty Half Ironman only a month away. I hit the lakes for a 13 mile run and then had to pack for the honeymoon. After that it was off to mow the lawn as it was already long and would not get mowed again until we got back on the 24th. Kelly was not excited about me cramming everything in at the last minute but in the end everything worked out perfect and I go to the hotel to get ready right on time.

On the way to the hotel I stopped of at the tux shop with one of my groomsman to pick up his tux and my jacket that they had to resize. According to their sizing I apparently lost 35 lbs since they measured me in February. While there I realized that I had forgot black socks or any socks for that matter. Fortunately the good people at the Wedding Shoppe were willing to sell me the finest pair of socks five dollars can buy and off we went.

First it was picture time. Holy crap! I though our engagement pictures took a long time. I haven't had perma grin like that since I bonked in a Marathon in Iraq and all my muscles seized up making me look like the crippled joker. Our photographer was a woman named Chloe and her husband. They are the awesomest photographers ever! Totally fun to work with. We got so into the pictures we were almost late to our own wedding. Luckily we knew that they wouldn't start without us.

The ceremony went off without a hitch. Kelly and I had both the reception and ceremony at Black Bear Crossings on Como Lake. Incredible place and they were super awesome to work with and had by far the best wedding food I have ever had.

Then it was time to let it all hang out on the dance floor. I will say I am not a huge dancer but get a couple of drinks in me and things can get interesting. Even after the long day I was able to dig deep and relinquish any self respect I had and bust a move ... or two. I haven't seen such disregard for a dance floor since that kid tried a front flip on dancing with the stars and landed on his face. Below is a picture of myself and my long time friend and now father in law dancing. He actually paid $1 to do it. Later I even had to busted out the electric slide. Everyone was into it and we had a blast.

Once the night was done Kelly and I headed back to the hotel were we immediately fell into a deep coma. Wake up was at 6:45 as I still had a little packing to do and there was still present opening to be done. Then onto the airport at 11:00 for our flight to Switzerland. If I have one piece of advice to give you for jet lag it is called Dramamine. I slept nearly the whole flight there and then used it again for the first two nights. Awesome stuff.